Chronic graft-versus-host disease and inhibition of interleukin-17: proof of concept in humans.

Psoriasiform chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a rare clinical presentation recently described after allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. It is characterized by the combination of clinical and pathological characteristics of psoriasis together with pathological features of chronic GvHD. As described for psoriasis, psoriasiform chronic GvHD is characterized by the infiltration of T helper 17 CD8+ T cells producing both interferon-γ and interleukin-17. However, no data are available about the efficacy of interleukin-17 blockade in the treatment of patients with psoriasiform chronic GvHD. What's already known about this topic? Psoriasiform chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a rare clinical presentation with a poor durable response to steroids. Animal models and human data suggest that psoriasiform GvHD could be induced through interleukin-17 production by donor T cells. What does this study add? We describe the first case of a patient with psoriasiform GvHD and persistent improvement on treatment with secukinumab, an anti-interleukin-17A antibody.